Yes. That is the only possible meaning from his post. Now get back to work slave.
Lots of people do it. Not me, I have two recruiting posters to fight the Cylon menace on my wall.
I represent delinquent kids. So in addition to my diplomas, I have a wall of art drawn by my kids who were in detention. Some of it is pretty hysterical. I have a few funny posters, and a bumper sticker that says, “Got Rights - thank a Criminal Defense Attorney.” I also have a cut out from an Onion calendar. The caption is, “Mugger can’t believe the crap music victim had on his iPod.” And I have a board with clippings from my cases that made it in the paper.
I don’t have any family pictures. But that is a safety thing. Not a taste thing.
Not at all. I wrote not a thing about childless/childfree singletons. I was addressing the motivation of those of us with children and/or spouses
All the time? Of course not. But during bad moments, yes. My wife & our kids are my motivation for putting up with the times. My purpose in life is to provide for my family’s safety, health, security, happiness, and prosperity, in that order.
I figure that, if the president can have family photos on display at his desk, it can’t be too unprofessional.
Is having a family unprofessional?
If a person is a sex worker, and has pictures of kids in his/her place of business, that would be unprofessional. Otherwise, no.
I was only stuck in a cube for a year and a quarter, but given that experience wallpaper sounds like an excellent idea.
Exactly this. I am not one of those people whose cube is decorated to within an inch of its life, but I have three pictures of my kids/husband hanging up, a co-worker’s baby announcement and a few other miscellaneous items including a sign from a co-worker saying, “I NEED A WALK!” a “Where’s Waldo” sticker (because someone on a call was looking for Waldo and a lame fortune from a fortune cookie. My colleagues refer to that particular area as the wall of fame and occasionally come by and tack extra stuff to it. So I guess you could say that my co-workers decorate my cube more than I do. I leave up the stuff that makes me snicker (co-worker stuff) and that which makes me smile (kid stuff) so that when I’m having an incredibly shitty, stressful day I can get through it without injuring anyone.
For what it’s worth, I’m a sr. manager. Even the president of our large Fortune 50 company has his kids’ artwork all over his office and pictures of his family. We’re a horrible place to work - we’ve got to find some entertainment somehow.
In both my home and my office, I need a lot of “stuff” around to feel comfortable. Bare walls or a bare desk make me anxious. On the wall in front of me, I have a large number of work-related papers and reminders, including 29 Post-it notes in various colors. I also have a picture of me in costume for Halloween 2013; a picture of me with my Dad on a cruise vacation; a picture of my parents on a cruise to Alaska; a Dilbert cartoon; a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Google doodle; the closing text of the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision (cleverly stuck up with a rainbow of pushpins); a chronological list of the countries that have same-sex marriage (replacing the map of U.S. states I had been maintaining); the schedule for release of Presidential dollar coins; and a picture of me with the three San Francisco Giants World Series trophies. I also have a framed picture of my father on my desk (it was a Chanukah present from my Mom).
I don’t know how it compares, since I never stayed, let alone worked, in the USA. But it’s pretty common over here.
Out of my 8 closer immediate coworkers, three have family pictures in various numbers (one has several pictures of each of her 4 daughters, and some pictures of her greatsons on top of it), one has pictures of himself in a reclining chair, plus pictures of his dog, plus pictures of his car and motorbike, which presumably fill the same function, one has drawings made by some young temps we had, and another pictures of landscape and monuments. 2 have no decorations at all (I don’t, either).
I’ve seen family pictures (and many kid drawings) in all the offices I worked, and I’m not sure how it’s unprofessional.
Maybe professionals don’t have families?
I have a photo of my wife and younger child as an infant. Also, I have a cover from a Hammacher Schlemmer Christmas catalog pinned to my wall. The catalog came in last winter and we joked about the robot displayed on the cover. Later, the receptionist pinned it to my wall and I’ve left it there since (unknown to her) my youngest loves robots so seeing it there reminds me of him and makes me smile. It’s this guy, except in a catalog cover format.
We have a pretty easy going office though.
Why would that be unprofessional?
Pictures of little kids watching would hurt the customer experience - I guess.
What if the sex worker doesn’t have kids?
So apparently in our new age, stuff like that is “too hetero” and possibly offensive to our (openly) gay coworkers. Bet it will become a less common thing.
I wonder when we’ll be able to start using e-ink displays for decoration instead. E-ink doesn’t consume power when it is retaining an image, and the newest variants are color and reasonable resolution. This has several advantages, it means stuff doesn’t fade over time (if the display starts to fade you can replace it since the images are digital), it means you can much more easily change what you are displaying, and…when the employer fires you, they can just delete all the images.
In fact, if decorations are done with e-ink, and office supplies belong to the company, and your computer uses an “image” stored on a server somewhere and downloaded to your computer temporarily when you log in…
They could fire you and not even have to let you clean out your desk. Fired employees would just…disappear…
But on a less insidious note, this would theoretically allow the ultimate - 100% relocatable offices. If nothing in the cubical is specific to a particular worker, that all the things that worker needs are digital, you could relocate someone by clicking a mouse. It would let you change where you work to be next to the coworkers you need to be adjacent to for the particular phase of the project you are on, and change daily or weekly or whenever.
Your desktop computer would use a virtual machine, so it would retain exactly the same memory state and behave the same way when you move desks, and the base computer could be different, so long as it has the resources to run the VM. It wouldn’t even shut down or reboot when you move, the image would just get sent to the new machine after being suspended. And as part of the package, all the e-ink displays at the new desk would update immediately. Oh, and the lighting color/intensity/color spectrum could change as well since different people have different preferences. And if you installed ductless minisplits for every group of cubicles or per office, the HVAC settings would change.
That’s interesting though, since a lot of people have pictures of kids in their house, sex workers or not. Does it bother people if they’re having sex and there’s a family photo somewhere that has a kid in it that’s “watching” you?
What exactly is offensive to gay (openly or not) coworkers?
It is completely common in the USA, and completely professional. It is common in both cubicles and high-level managerial offices, even in offices where executives and salespeople meet with clients.
I would assume since cameras became cheap and portable enough to be standard equipment in middle-class homes, which would be roughly the 1950’s.
Some of whom probably display pics of their kids and spouse.